HPV Vaccine Timeline

And with each new vaccine, there comes more protection against anal and genital warts and anal, genital, head and neck, and cervical cancers.

Gardasil9, the only HPV vaccine available in the United States, increases the protection level against cervical cancer from 70 to 90%!

Should You Get an Extra Dose of Gardasil9?

Has your child already finished their HPV vaccine series?

With which HPV vaccine?

To be clear, if they have finished the series, then they are considered to be fully vaccinated and protected.

“Persons who have completed a valid series with any HPV vaccine do not need any additional doses.”

National Cancer Institute on Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccines

Remember, the key, high-risk strains that cause most HPV-associated cancer are HPV-16 and 18, which are present in all of the HPV vaccines.

The extra coverage in Gardasil9 to HPV strains 31, 33, 45, 52, and 58 could prevent an additional 10% of invasive HPV associated cancers or about 3,800 cases each year though, mostly in women.

Should you get any extra doses of Gardasil9 for this extra coverage?

“Administration of a 3-dose regimen of 9vHPV vaccine to adolescent girls and young women 12-26 years of age who are prior qHPV vaccine recipients is highly immunogenic with respect to HPV types 31/33/45/52/58 and generally well tolerated.”

Garland et al on Safety and immunogenicity of a 9-valent HPV vaccine in females 12-26 years of age who previously received the quadrivalent HPV vaccine.

While safe to do and it works, there is no formal recommendation that anyone actually get any extra doses of Gardasil9 at this time.

It is something to consider if you want the extra protection though.

Will we get even more coverage in future HPV vaccines? The future might come in different types of vaccines or even in therapeutic vaccines. There doesn’t seem to be a new version of Gardasil with expanded strain coverage in the immediate pipeline though.